


it was cold there, at the end

by heartofstanding



Category: 14th Century CE RPF
Genre: Altered Mental States, Character Death, Death, Death Wish, Death by Starvation, Despair, Dreams, Flashbacks, Gen, Heavy Angst, Multi, Past Character Death, everyone's either dead or dying sorry, non-conventional dialogue tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-19 15:37:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22713100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofstanding/pseuds/heartofstanding
Summary: The last days of Richard II.
Relationships: Anne of Bohemia Queen of England/Richard II of England/Robert de Vere Duke of Ireland
Comments: 13
Kudos: 14





	it was cold there, at the end

Richard is running. The grass is long and green, soft beneath his bare soles and damp with morning dew. He can see droplets clinging to bent strands, gleaming in the sunshine. The air is very pure, the sky very blue. Scent hangs in the air, the sweetness of spring flowers, and the crickets chirp. His arms are held out, balancing, and he can see – just ahead – Ned. His voice laughing, calling Richard.

_—Dickon, Dickon, come on!_

And Richard follows, his legs pumping, his heart beating loud. He sees Ned’s face, the brilliant smile.

— _You’re so slow, Dickon, come on! Keep up!_

The grass brushes wetly against his legs. Richard tries to catch Ned, his hands reaching out. His mother and her ladies are laughing about something, it doesn’t matter, he needs to catch Ned.

— _Dickon! Catch me!_

And then he trips. Falls. He doesn’t want to fall.

Then hands. Large, steady hands catching him around the waist, saving him from the fall. Lifting him up. The smell of rosewood and oranges, the flash of dark-gold hair in the sun, a laughing face. Papa. Papa caught him, _saved_ him, and he kisses Richard’s laughing face, hugging him close. With a few strides, they have caught up with Ned and Ned is giggling and squirming in Papa’s arms.

— _Papa, you caught me!_

— _Always._

*

It was cold.

Richard didn’t know what he had expected dying would feel like. He thought of Anne and thought of rosemary and a broken voice speaking a language he barely understood. He thought of Robert and Burley, thought of violence and blood. He thought of his mother and broken hearts giving out from grief. He remembered the long, slow descent into death his father had made, the gasping breath. The sudden shock of losing Ned.

Nothing like this. They all had clean deaths, in a way. No act of murder. No hunger gnawing at the belly, no thoughts spinning away, no desperate thirst cracking at the back of the throat. No lessons left to learn, no dreams to drive one mad. His father had repented, his mother had wept, Anne had sung. Robert, Burley, Ned – Richard didn’t know but he imagined a scream, a terror beating at their hearts in the desperate desire to live.

Richard was silent. He did not want to die but he did not want to live.

There was little he could complain about. They kept him well enough. When he shivered, they banked the fires higher and laid another layer of blankets over him. They gave him books to read, played music outside the locked door. They let him see the priest when he wanted and when he didn’t want to. They bathed him, washed his hands and feet and brushed his hair. They perfumed his body almost lovingly.

He remembered the other Ned he knew, once Aumerle, now Rutland and maybe York someday, pulling Hal, wet and shivering in front of a fire. Was that love? Was this care for Richard love?

He asked the servant who brought fresh firewood in and the man only stared at him. Was he not supposed to speak? Did he even have a voice left to speak with?

To scream?

*

He dreamt. He dreamt of a hand in his hair, the fingers grasping it hard enough to hurt or else caressing it. He dreamt of falling. He dreamt of digging, a shovel in his hand to break the wet, black earth open, the smell of wet turf overwhelming. Then he dreamt of handling timber, building a box to lie down in. In another dream, he picked up a book in his room and found on every page the Three Living and the Three Dead. Richard heard his own voice speaking:

_—I am afraid._

The Dead replied:

_—I was well fair. Such shall you be. For God’s sake, beware by me!_

Their empty eyes stared at Richard.

— _Such shall you be._

Richard woke. He felt the traitorous heart within him, beating against his ribs. He could not sit up, could not rouse himself and he slept again. There was a knife in one hand and a heart in the other.

— _I am nothing,_ whispered the heart, _nothing. Kill me._

 _—I am freedom,_ sang the blade, _the sweetest thing. Use me._

He stabbed down, felt hot blood over his hands. The heart stayed whole, the knife shattered against his palm. He dreamt of a standing vigil for a boy in a bed with a bloodied, bruised face, John of Gaunt at his side.

— _There’s comfort,_ Richard said, _in ending._

_—Well, he can’t die. That would be a disaster. No, it’s not allowed._

The boy in the bed stared at them

— _Please, God, I want to die,_ he said.

He woke to morning and the priest with his hand on Richard’s forehead, praying, the sacred oil warm on his lips.

*

He is tired, so tired, and his robes are heavy on his shoulders but the crown heavier still, like a cold, hard bite of iron around his brow. He has to keep his neck up, his shoulders back, because he is a king now, he is the king now, forever and ever, and kings stand up straight, they do not slump. He wants to touch the balm on his brow, to remember how it felt when the bishop anointed him – like he was flying, like he was full of light and frankincense, like he wasn’t real but something more real than real.

But he’s _tired,_ his limbs heavy and eyes heavier. Mama takes him in her arms, gives the crown to Burley.

— _Sweet-thing,_ she says, _let’s lie down for a moment. Just the two of us?_

They go into one of the rooms, where the noise of the crowds and celebrations become muffled, and they lie on the bed. It feels funny, to be in bed wearing such heavy finery. His fingers trace over his forehead, finds it dry. His eyelids droop.

Mama’s hand is in his hair, stroking it. He snuggles into her, feels her arm with its wide sleeve cover him like a blanket.

_—My boy, my sweet boy, you’ve been so brave, so good._

She murmurs other words. His eyes close up tight, his head nestled against her breast, and for a moment, none of it seems to matter. He is just her little boy, she is his mother, and she will keep him safe.

— _You have such a long path ahead of you,_ he thinks she says. _Such a long path._

*

His mind was eating itself. He found it funny, in a way, that his worst enemy was finally being defeated – and starvation was all it took. He counted the bricks that made up his room but he lost count. He counted the windows, which was easier, but he still lost count. His fingers turned the pages in the Bible they had given him but his eyes could not read the words. He lost hours staring up at the ceiling, wondering if it was going to collapse, wondering if his vision was darkening, but he realised it was just the hours passing.

He asked for a pen and ink and studied blank parchment. He could not think of a word to write, a shape to draw. He let the pen fall and watched the ink splatter over the page, his fingers turning numb.

Words came to his mind, words that weren’t his own but close enough. He dipped his finger in the ink and wrote:

_Now a caitiff poor am I, deep in the ground lo here I lie. My beauty great is all quite gone, my flesh is wasted to the bone._

He couldn’t remember where they came from but he thought of his father’s gasping breath, the voice creaking with pain and effort. He laid his head on the parchment and wished for an end.

*

How ugly it was, he thought, to die. To feel death biting at his heels, to feel himself as a beast in a cage waiting for the slaughter. For each hour, each minute, to seem an eternity, to feel his own pulse and cling to the beat of his heart. Now. No. Now. Please. No. Now. Surely, it must be – no. Let it be over. Let him be saved.

He begged. It hadn’t helped in the beginning, when he still felt things like hunger and desperation, when he could scream and throw things. When he could promise riches and rewards or threaten horrible death.

 _—Do it,_ he had howled, _and I will have your skin ripped from your flesh and hung from the battlements, I will have your head on a pike, I will, I will. Or save me and you will find no greater love, no greater gratitude than that of a king’s._

But the walls were thick and hard and the servants scurried away and left him on his own. His friends and allies were dead, save Hal – who he had absolved from saving him – and Isabelle – who could do nothing – and Rutland – who had proved himself a Judas. So Richard begged for different things.

— _Mercy, mercy, mercy. End it and be merciful._

They moved him like he was a doll, swatting away his hands and wrapping him in a thick blanket so he could not move, his lungs struggling to hold air.

*

Richard’s head rests on Anne’s thigh, her fingers cool against his cheek. He looks up through his lashes at her, the softness of her body, the warmth of her eyes and the bright bronze of her hair. He turns, nuzzling in, and watches Robert beginning to dress, his body gleaming in the light.

 _—You don’t have to leave_ , says Anne, her voice lowly sweet.

Robert laughs and stops, his braes half-tied.

— _No?_

_—No._

Richard smiles up at Anne, reaching for her hand and kissing it. He holds out his other hand to Robert. He takes Richard’s hand and lies down beside him, kissing him. _Love,_ Richard thinks, and feels it streaming out of him. A pure, blinding light. He loves Anne, he loves Robert and he lies between them, a bridge connecting them.

— _Never stop,_ he tells them, _never stop loving me._

 _—I don’t think it’s possible to stop loving you,_ Robert says, his voice serious and eyes sad, _even if it’s better we don’t._

_—Better for who?_

_—Don’t know,_ Robert says, then he grins. _Maybe just the veins in Gloucester’s forehead._

Richard laughs and clutches Robert’s hand tighter.

— _I love you,_ Robert says, _endlessly and without reason, without thought. That can never stop._

 _—No,_ Anne murmurs. _Never._

*

Everything was gone from him. His friends were dead, his family was dead, his lovers were dead. All entombed and rotting in their graves. He had shivered away his fear, snuffed out that scrambling animal instinct for freedom, for life. He had been a kingdom once – the crown, the throne, the orb and sceptre, the sacred balm, the _king_ – but now he was nothing.

But he dreamt still. He was holding a chisel, carving words in stone. _As I am, so shall you be._ He was digging a grave, building a coffin, carving an epitaph. _My flesh is wasted to the bone._ He was made of gilt-bronze, he was rotting in the dirt already. He was standing on a field, arrows whistling through snow. He was holding onto the standard of the King of England, feet sinking in the mud. He was standing in front of Wat Tyler, making promises that would never be kept. He was in the Tower, watching London burn.

The priest woke him, gave him the Eucharist and asked for his confession. He couldn’t speak, the wafer slicing his throat apart. They gave him wine and he was sick with it.

He slept again, lost days.

*

There was a crack in the wall. He wanted to touch it but his feet would not hold him. He stared at it and it seemed to swallow him whole and he thought, _I am dreaming again,_ but he did not sleep or drift into a different dream. The crack grew.

The servants told him that it was February. The days were getting longer, the nights shorter. Soon the cold of winter would begin to slip away and spring would come. He wondered if he would live to see Easter, doubted it and then thought he would. He had lived far longer than he thought possible. His mind was going but sometimes it came back.

He listened for returning feet but could not hear anything. Outside, he imagined it is blanketed in snow. He could not go to the window and see, he could not speak to ask. The servants rubbed his feet and hands in oil and wrapped them in wool. He tucked them under himself, waited.

Sometimes, he thought he heard waves but they were in Pontefract and the sea was miles away. He would have liked to see it again, the endless blue of it, the wildness of it. To feel himself on a ship, thinking that he might be swallowed up by the sea until nothing remained of him. He could remember standing at the prow of a ship, looking for land, but he could not remember when this was, where the ship was bearing him.

He tried to make his old self turn back, to see who waited for him, but he would not move, he would only go on staring at the vast expanse of water. He wished it had devoured him and spat up his bones on some distant shore.

*

It was cold and dark and he was alone.

The fire burned low, the wood unstocked. He shivered beneath the blankets, his teeth chattered. There were no irons to hold him and he thought they no longer bothered to lock the door. He found his eyes straying to it, found himself gritting his teeth. Get up, he told himself, get up and leave, but he could not even say the words out loud.

He closed his eyes. He was dying, he was dead but his damned body would not give up, did not know it was beaten. His heart was slow, his blood sluggish, and it was over but nothing – nothing stopped.

Nothing except his dreams. There was the room and there was blackness. He did not dream anymore but he felt something on the edge of his tongue. Was this love, he thought, when the servants washed his wasted body? Had he ever known love? Once, he thought he had known it once but it slipped between his fingers and became lost.

He closed his eyes, felt the darkness encroaching again and reached for it.

***

They came in the hour before the dawn, when the sky was a pale blue and the earth still dark as night. They carried fresh wood for the fire, more blankets and a basin of warm, perfumed water. More than that, they brought light: two lanterns and a candle flickering in the cold air. They pushed open the door – there was no point in locking it, the prisoner could not stand – and busied themselves, tending to the fire.

One moved to the bed, pulled close to the hearth, and stopped. There was silence. Even the birds seemed to be holding their breath. They knew. The prisoner was dead.

His mother’s sleeve covers him like a blanket, her breast warm beneath his cheek, her hand stroking through his hair.

— _Sweet-thing,_ she says, _you’ve been so brave._

They pulled back the blankets, uncurled his body, laid it flat against the mattress, and washed it. They combed oil through his hair, trying their best to hide how ill-health had stolen its lustre, and burnt the hair that had fallen out.

Robert takes his hand and squeezes it tight. His eyes are warm, his arms sturdy.

 _—I love you,_ he says, _endlessly and without reason._

They took his hands and scrubbed them clean, folded them neatly over his chest. They could not disguise the way the nails were bitten to the quick, the tears in the flesh, but it did not matter. A shroud would hide it – all was that required was that people could see his face and know who he had been and know he was dead.

Anne’s hand caresses his cheek, she bends her head to kiss his lips and it is like the benediction, like love, pure and perfect.

— _I never stopped,_ she says, _I never could._

They cut away his clothing, wound him in a shroud that left his face uncovered. For his face, there were tricks. Red paint was daubed carefully over the lips to give them colour, to make him look less sickly in death. Though he was dead, they supposed, and could be expected to look sickly, especially given the story that he had refused food. But it wasn’t for them to question orders.

Ned stretches his arm out, takes Richard’s hand.

 _—You’re so slow, Dickon,_ he says, _keep up now._

There came an end to the things they had to do. The body was encased in lead, a hole cut for the face to be seen, and then set on a chariot. They watched as it left, the black banners fluttering in the wind, and then turned and went inside.

He is running, the grass whipping against his bare feet. The air is very pure, the sky very blue. He sees Ned’s smile, Anne’s bright hair, his mother’s eyes, Robert’s hand outstretched. He follows, reaching out.

He trips,

falling,

falling,

falling.

The dark ground rushes up towards him.

He doesn’t want to fall.

But hands, large, firm hands, catch him around the waist and lift him up. Hold him safe. The smell of rosewood and oranges. Within a few strides, they are with the others and the light is beautiful and warm.

 _—Papa,_ he says, _Papa, you caught me._

 _—Always,_ Papa says.

**Author's Note:**

> The date and nature of Richard II’s death are uncertain but it has been traditionally believed that he died on 14 February 1400 after being starved to death by his gaolers in Pontefract. Starvation is the most consistent thread in the accounts of his death, sometimes framed as murder, other times depicted as self-inflicted and brought on by grief over the failure of the Epiphany Rising. 
> 
> Edward (Ned) of Angoulême, Richard’s oldest and only full-blooded sibling, died at only five years of age, either in September 1370 or January 1371, possibly from bubonic plague. 
> 
> Edward, the Black Prince died on 8 June 1376 after a lengthy, prolonged illness. It is impossible to diagnose this illness accurately – although often assumed to be amoebic dysentery, it would have been impossible to survive dysentery for as long as the Prince did. I recommend David Green’s 2009 article, "Masculinity and medicine: Thomas Walsingham and the death of the Black Prince" in the _Journal of Medieval History_ , Vol 35 for more discussion of the Prince’s illness.
> 
> Joan of Kent died 7 August 1385, reportedly out of grief when Richard refused to pardon firstborn son, John Holland, for murdering the son of the Earl of Stafford. She had been in ill-health for some time before this, possibly suffering from dropsy.
> 
> Sir Simon Burley was Richard II’s tutor, carried him at his coronation and was executed in the Merciless Parliament of 1388, at the height of the Appellant Crisis. Robert de Vere would have been executed in this parliament too had he not already fled the country after the Battle of Radcot Bridge in 1387. He died on 22 November 1392, from injuries sustained in a boar hunt in Louvain. 
> 
> Anne of Bohemia died 7 June 1394, probably from plague. 
> 
> Three Living and Three Dead is a relatively common motif in medieval art. The dialogue between Richard and the Dead is quoted from a discussion about it in the book, _The Ghost: A Cultural History_ by Susan Owens. The words Richard writes are a translation of the Black Prince’s epitaph, quoted from the David Green article mentioned above.
> 
> Gloucester was, of course, Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, who was one of the senior Lords Appellant.
> 
> “Rutland – who had proved himself a Judas” is a reference to Edward of York, who was Earl of Rutland, briefly Duke of Aumerle, and became the Duke of York in 1402. The historical Rutland is a figure of more dubious loyalties than Shakespeare’s Duke of Aumerle and whether or not he “betrayed” Richard and why can and has been debated. However, given this fic is entirely from Richard’s perspective, it’s important to note that any understanding and knowledge he had of Rutland’s betrayal was most likely poor – he was an isolated prisoner whose only sources of information were his Lancastrian captors.


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